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Frank Kremblas Jr., manager of triple-A Indianapolis, grew up in Canal Winchester, the son of a championship quarterback.

Following his own path -

His name no longer draws the instant glint of recognition from Ohio State sports fans as it
would have when he was growing up in Canal Winchester.

Frank Kremblas Jr. is his late father's namesake, but the uniform he wears as manager of the
triple-A Indianapolis Indians is entirely his own. That doesn't diminish the pride he has for the
sports legacy that Frank Kremblas Sr. left him.

His father was a three-year letterman with the Ohio State football team from 1956 to '58. His
coach was Woody Hayes, and he quarterbacked the Buckeyes to the 1957 national championship with
teammates such as Dick LeBeau and Jim Marshall.

Time, however, has marched down the field in the inexorable three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust
manner associated with Hayes. Memories have faded.

"That's no longer much of an issue here," Kremblas said before a recent Indians game against the
Clippers in Huntington Park. "It's been so long ago. My dad has friends in the area that still
associate the name. It's five or six guys that he played golf with a lot when he was here.

"But it's not really more than that, because we lived outside of Columbus. And he didn't like to
go to Ohio State football games because the traffic was so bad. I liked to go when I was young
because it was new to me. But when I started driving, I (understood). The traffic is horrible."

By the time Frank Jr. was born in 1966, his father had moved on to life after football.

"He got done with law school and became a lawyer," Kremblas said.

The elder Kremblas, who died in 2006, didn't push; he supported. Frank Jr.'s pursuit of baseball
for the most practical of reasons.

"The only offers I got for Division I (college) were in baseball," Kremblas said.

He attended Eastern Kentucky before the Cincinnati Reds drafted him in the 23rd round in 1989.
Kremblas played eight seasons in the system and rose to the triple-A level before the reality of a
.233 lifetime batting average nudged him toward the dugout.

"I was a free agent and I was trying to find another job," he said. "I didn't really get any
offers except from the (Montreal) Expos as a player-coach. What it ended up being, I was the
hitting coach."

After a few years of coaching in the Expos and Milwaukee Brewers organizations, Kremblas became
a manager in 1998 and discovered his passion.

"Probably the best thing about it is teaching," Kremblas said. "It's fun to teach the
fundamentals. But the in-game stuff is probably the most fun -- the strategies, making adjustments
to the pitcher they have that night and to what they're doing."

Clippers manager Torey Lovullo knows firsthand how aggressive Kremblas' teams can be. Lovullo
has known him as a player, coach and manager.

"I played against Krem when he was with Indianapolis," Lovullo said. "I played for him when he
became a coach for the Expos. He was young and raw then. But the best thing about him was that he
was as encouraging and enthusiastic as any coach I've ever been with. He's got energy, and you can
feel it."

Kremblas has enjoyed the success and tasted the failure inherent in the job. He was the manager
of the year in the Pacific Coast League in 2007 after a pennant-winning season with Nashville. One
year later, the Brewers fired him after a last-place finish with the Sounds.

"(Milwaukee GM) Doug Melvin said that they didn't see me having a big-league opportunity with
them," Kremblas said. "They wanted to let me go somewhere else and try to get a big-league
job."

The Pittsburgh Pirates hired him to manage Indianapolis. The Pirates are rebuilding, so Kremblas
is helping to develop young players for Pittsburgh as he did with a rebuilding Milwaukee
franchise.

The style that he teaches definitely is not "three yards and a cloud of dust."

"We're trying to frustrate the other team as much as we can," Kremblas said. "We try to steal
bases and be aggressive. Everybody has the green light on my teams. I just tell them to be
smart."

He remains a quarterback's son with the drive to reach the big leagues.

"That's the ultimate level," Kremblas said. "I loved playing football. I missed it when I
stopped playing. But I'm glad I chose baseball."